


Counting Down

by pinkfrostedsprinkleddoughnuts



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7411472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkfrostedsprinkleddoughnuts/pseuds/pinkfrostedsprinkleddoughnuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where people have clocks on their arms counting down to when they will meet their soulmate, Dan and Phil are already dating, but Phil’s clock hasn’t hit zero yet. Phil’s worried because his soulmate might not be Dan, but the clock doesn’t exactly mean what Phil thinks it means...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Down

   “Mum, why is there a clock on my arm?” Phil asks. His mother pauses, looking down at her seven-year-old son. His eyes are bright blue and wholly innocent, and she knows that seven is far too young to know the reason why there are numbers curled around his wrist. Always counting down, fast; _too fast_ for her son. 

   “It’s a countdown,” Phil’s mother says slowly. 

   “What does it count down to?” Phil prods further. 

   “Something important,” his mother smiles, and hopes Phil can’t hear the sadness in her voice. 

   “What’s that?” 

   “I’ll tell you when you’re older, Philly.” 

* * *

 

   So Phil asks again when he’s twelve, not understanding why his mother avoids his curious gaze when he asks: “What _is_ the clock counting down to?” 

   “It has to do with your soulmate,” Phil’s mother says. 

   Of course. Phil knows about soulmates: everybody has that one special person that completes them, that brings them so much happiness that it practically negates everything bad in their life. At least that’s how Phil thinks of soulmates, reflecting how he’s seen them portrayed on TV and in books. 

   “What _about_ my soulmate?” Phil stares at the numbers on his wrist with renewed curiosity. 

   “It counts down to when you meet them,” Phil’s mother says slowly. 

   “So when my clock reaches zero, I’ll meet my soulmate?” Phil grins, bouncing out of his kitchen and leaving his mother alone. The time on Phil’s clock was much shorter than everybody else’s time, which means Phil was going to meet his soulmate _sooner_! He could barely wait. 

* * *

 

   “Why do I have to cover it up?” Phil protests as his mum yanks his school blazer’s sleeve down, covering the clock on his arm. 

   “Because,” Phil’s mum says, “You’re fourteen now. When you get to this age, it’s better to keep your clock to yourself.” 

   “ _Why_?” Phil wanted people to be able to see his clock. He wanted to see his soulmate’s eyes – hopefully brown eyes, Phil always pictured his soulmate’s eyes as brown – light up when they saw Phil’s clock finally hit zero. He couldn’t wait. 

   “These clocks are private things,” Phil’s mum explains. “It’s rude to go showing them off. Don’t show it to anybody at school, okay, Phil?” 

   Phil nods. He notices how his mum’s sleeve is always down, her clock is always covered, but Phil doesn’t understand. Her clock should be at zero; she had met Phil’s dad years ago, so why does she still cover it up? 

* * *

 

   When Phil is twenty-two, he notices that he’s being tweeted a lot by some guy called Dan. Eventually, he figures, why not talk to him? 

   A quick glance at his clock tells him he’s not due to meet his soulmate for another few years yet, but Dan could be a great friend. 

   Actually, now that he thinks about it, Dan is pretty cute. And _hey_ , it can’t hurt to practice his flirting skills a little bit before he meets his real soulmate, right? 

   Even though he knows by looking at his clock, it still hurts a little bit when he finally wraps his arms around Dan at Manchester train station and his clock indicates he has _eight years_ left to meet his soulmate. 

   Dan doesn’t seem fazed. He hugs Phil tightly, not concerned about clocks in the slightest. He doesn’t look upset when he and Phil mess around in the Apple store, he doesn’t look unhappy when they get in line at Starbucks and order caramel macchiatos, and he looks downright ecstatic when he kisses Phil at the top of the Manchester Eye. And as much as Phil enjoys being with Dan like this, in real life for the first time, the feeling of his clock counting down still lingers in the back of Phil’s mind. 

* * *

 

   When Phil turns twenty-nine, he still does not understand how Dan isn’t his soulmate. They’re so perfect for each other in every way – Dan’s pessimism to Phil’s eternal optimism; Dan’s dark to Phil’s light; Dan’s moon to Phil’s sun. They’re both introverts, they’re both creative, they’re both hard workers, and they both absolutely love each other. 

   They’ve never, ever spoken about their clocks with one another. Phil’s mother’s warning about it being rude and taboo in society has stuck with him through the years, and so he has never said a word about his clock to anybody else. Dan has never brought it up either, and Phil has managed to work out why.

   Both of them usually wore bracelets or sleeves or something to cover their clocks up, but Phil catches a glimpse of Dan’s clock once when they are in the shower together and Dan’s bracelet slips off. 

   “Phil, don’t stare!” Dan cries, immediately picking his bracelet up from the shower floor and slipping it back on. 

   “Sorry,” Phil says, guilt flooding his veins as he looks back up into Dan’s eyes. “I – I didn’t _mean_ to see it!” 

   “I know,” Dan sighs, rubbing his arm absent-mindedly. “Let’s just – forget about it, yeah?” 

   Phil nods and picks up the raspberry-scented shower gel he accidentally got from Tesco, squeezing some into his hand and then reaching up to massage Dan’s shoulders and back. 

   But Phil’s not sure he can forget about it. Dan’s clock indicates that he has years before he meets his soulmate – and not just years, but _decades_! How could the world be _so cruel_ as to deny Dan his soulmate until he was almost seventy years old? 

   Dan’s frown deepens the longer Phil doesn’t respond. Eventually, Phil snaps out of it and turns to Dan, smiling. “Sure. Sorry I looked,” he says, leaning forward and pecking Dan on the lips. 

* * *

 

   Dan must have been upset because he won’t find his soulmate for decades. But he seems to be okay now that they’re sitting cuddled up on their couch together, Dan leaning his body comfortably into Phil’s chest. Their hands brush together in the popcorn bowl as the newest Avengers movie plays on their TV. 

   Phil can’t concentrate on the movie, however, because even though Dan can’t see it, Phil can _feel_ the clock on his own arm counting down. And the last time he looked, a few hours ago, it said that he had _just less than three days_ until he met his soulmate. 

   He wraps his arm around Dan’s waist, and Dan murmurs and sinks further into Phil’s embrace. Phil honestly can’t imagine being with anybody else. He almost wishes he had a clock like Dan’s, giving him decades until he would be forced to meet his soulmate. At least then he would have more time with Dan. But the harsh truth is that in less than three days, Phil will have to leave Dan and move onto the next stage of his life. The next love of his life. 

   “Dan?” Phil speaks up as Iron Man and Captain America yell at each other on screen. 

   “Mmm?” Dan responds, only half-listening. 

   “ _I love you_.” 

   Dan pauses the movie and turns around to face Phil. They’d said _I love you_ countless times to each other over the years, but somehow, this feels different, and Dan senses it too. 

   “I love you too, Phil... Is everything okay?” Dan says. 

   “Yeah,” Phil lies. “I was just... thinking.” 

   “Yeah? What about?” Dan asks. 

   “Soulmates,” Phil says, biting his lip. 

   “Phil, you shouldn’t get too caught up with the clocks –” 

   “How can I not?” Phil protests. “They control our lives! I can’t go a _single day_ without worrying about the numbers circling my wrist! They _never_ stop counting down!” 

   “Hey, hey, Phil, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Dan says soothingly, running his hand through Phil’s hair. “It has to happen eventually, right? It happens to everybody.”

   “I wish it didn’t happen at all,” Phil pouts. 

   Dan laughs.

   “Hey!” Phil says, a little offended that Dan would laugh at something so serious. 

   “No, no, I agree,” Dan backtracks and stops laughing. “I wish I could spend forever with you, Phil.” 

   “You can,” Phil smiles sadly, but Dan just shakes his head. 

   “I can’t, and you know it.”

   “Please?” Phil asks. 

   Dan’s hazelnut eyes grow wide. “Phil...” 

   “Dan, please, just promise me. Promise me that you’ll stay with me forever.” Phil has his hands on Dan’s soft shoulders now, gripping tightly. 

   Dan smiles. “Okay, Phil. I promise that I’ll stay with you forever.” 

* * *

 

   It’s raining on a Tuesday afternoon when Phil’s clock finally hits zero. There’s nothing dramatic about it, the numbers just get to zero, and then... stop. 

   Everything is still. Phil is very confused. His numbers have gotten to zero and he’s currently standing in his and Dan’s kitchen, eating Dan’s _Shreddies_ dry from the box. Dan’s out getting supplies for their weekly movie night. He definitely isn’t meeting his soulmate right now, unless his soulmate is, in fact, a box of _Shreddies_ , which might actually be preferable to the other option of _somebody that’s not Dan Howell_. 

   Phil glances out of the window just as thunder claps loudly and a bolt of lightning strikes the ground outside of their apartment.

     _Pathetic fallacy_ , Phil thinks out of nowhere. His Bachelor’s degree in English really is kind of useless.

* * *

 

   It’s three hours later when Phil gets the phone call. 

   He had become worried after one hour, very concerned after two, and petrified after three hours of Dan being at Tesco, which was literally ten minutes away. Dan hadn’t answered his phone, and Phil had even gone to look for Dan, but couldn’t find him. 

   When Phil’s phone finally rings, he grabs it before the first note of the song has even ended. 

   “ _Dan_?” He asks frantically, panic in his voice and his mind. 

   “Is this Phillip Michael Lester?” Phil’s stomach drops. The voice on the other end of the phone isn’t Dan’s. 

   “Phil,” Phil corrects the other person softly. 

   “Oh, okay, hello Phil,” the unknown voice says. “I’m calling about Dan Howell, it seems he got into a car accident around an hour ago and –” 

   Phil drops the phone, and he can no longer hear the person on the other end of the phone. He can’t hear anything aside from the thudding of his own painfully loud heart.

* * *

 

    _How could he have been so unbelievably stupid?_

   He understands now why Dan hadn’t wanted to talk about their clocks. He wonders if Dan ever saw Phil’s clock, or if he on some level knew that his time was coming soon. 

   Phil’s mother had been overly apologetic at Dan’s funeral, saying over and over that she _felt awful when she first saw how little time Phil’s soulmate had_ , saying that she _couldn’t crush Phil like that when he was a child_ , saying that she _had to lie_. Phil doesn’t blame her. The clocks are an unstoppable force, they control everything. 

   The funeral takes place on another rainy Tuesday. _Pathetic fallacy_ , Phil thinks.

   Dan would’ve thought his funeral was just pathetic, full stop. 

   “ _You said you’d be with me forever_ ,” Phil whispers at the closed casket, and then he breaks. 

* * *

 

   Months later, Phil has finally figured it out! 

   The clocks are there from the time you’re born. They count down and down _and down_ , and when they inevitably reach zero, your soulmate’s time has run out. Your clock shows your soulmate’s time of death, and there’s no way to prevent it. 

   Phil has spent months thinking of ways to prevent Dan’s death, but he knows it was impossible. There’s nothing he could have done, even if he did know what the clock on his wrist really meant. The clock controls everything. 

   But Dan’s dead.

   Dan doesn’t have a working clock anymore.

   Dan’s clock stopped working the moment he died. 

   The clock does not control Phil anymore. 

    _Phil is free_. 

   Phil could not control Dan’s death; the clocks did that. But the clocks are gone now, and Phil can, at least, control his own death. 

   “You _promised_ ,” Phil whimpers as he drags the dull razor blade down his arm. The bath water turns pale pink, and then light red, and then intense red.

   “You promised we’d be together _forever_ ,” Phil says, and when the bath water is completely red, Phil swears he can hear Dan’s voice replying: 

   “ _We will be, Phil_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry


End file.
